Vitamin D Also Helps Prevent The Flu

During our horribly long winter, I posted many articles on vitamin D and its growing evidence of multiple health effects. Here’s another well designed study (Vitamin D3 Supplements in Winter May Help Protect Against Influenza A) which had two groups of schoolkids and gave one group vitamin D3 and the other group nothing extra. The results showed a 42% reduction in infections of seasonal influenza. It’s a small study but well designed and also consistent with many other studies, and it should be encouraging to parents that next season their children may benefit from vitamin D supplements. Most pediatric academies are already recommending year-round vitamin D supplements for children, for multiple reasons, but the overall supplement rate is still fairly low. Hopefully, studies like this will increase its use.